The notes, unsecured and unsubordinated, are priced at .25 percent and the company said the initial conversion price works out to about $265.76 per share. Before Jan. 1, 2018, "the notes will be convertible only upon the occurrence of specified events", which are not specified in the press release, another factor suggesting deal. The stock is trading in the $180-per-share range and the company also has a March 20 meeting to approve a four-to-one stock split which gets the price in a more typical range. As of January 31, Salesforce had $747.2 million in cash and short-term marketable securities of $120.4 million. It does have a negative 1.4 current ratio, with $521.3 million in convertible notes already on the current liability side so a $1-billion note offering does not really change the ratio much. I'm putting my chips on acquisition but the other possibility, based on increased spending in 2012, is that this is being done to support growth. Salesforce lost $270.4 million for the year ended January 31, up from red ink of $11.6 million for 2012. Revenue for 2013 was $3.1 billion, an increase of 35 percent from $2.3 billion the prior year but it increased spending by 37 percent. It pumped money into sales and marketing, whose expenses reached $1.6 million for the recently ended year, an increase of 38 percent from $1.2 billion for 2012.